


I was an ocean (lost in the open)

by Amber_Flicker



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pirate, Betrayal, Gen, idk what else to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 06:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14491173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_Flicker/pseuds/Amber_Flicker
Summary: Hartley gets left behind after finding out things he shouldn't have. Then a pirate ship shows up...(AKA the rogues pirate AU no one asked for.)





	I was an ocean (lost in the open)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Throne by Bring Me The Horizon

Hartley still couldn't quite comprehend it, even as the ship sailed off and left him. His emotions hadn't caught up to what his mind knew.

Captain Wells- _Harrison_ had left him behind. It was certain it had been done on purpose. He should never have brought up the things he discovered. How could he have known the only person he trusted was actually the least trustworthy person on the ship?

Hartley put aside his feelings and did a thorough search of the island, to see if there was anything that could help him off of it, or at the very least keep him alive until someone else could rescue him. There wasn't anything. The island was little more than a mass of sand in the middle of the ocean- what vegetation grew on the island was scrubby and non-edible. He began to wonder just how well it had been planned out, leaving him on this specific island. Doubt pulled at his thoughts. It was highly unlikely that anyone would pass by before he died, it was so far out in such an obscure place. The other people on the ship wouldn't even care that he was gone. None of them would bother trying to convince Wells to return and look for him. Hartley almost wished he'd tried harder to make friends on the ship. Then maybe he wouldn't have ended up here.

 

He had two days to think on his mistakes before he saw a ship coming towards the island.

 

It was clearly a pirate ship, even from this distance he could see that. And Hartley... hadn't been a pirate. The STAR had been a research vessel. Which wasn't as bad as if he'd been part of the Navy, god knows the pirates wouldn't have accepted _that._ Still. He wouldn't be all that much use on a pirate ship. He didn't know much about dealing with the ship itself. He could navigate, he supposed. But it was a far cry from the research that he'd been part of aboard STAR.

Then again, _pirates._ They might just as well slit his throat for no reason.

But he refused to go hide like a coward. If they did kill him, it wouldn't really matter. He'd have died on this lifeless piece of land anyway. There wasn't much to lose. If he played this right, he could convince them to get him off this island. So he waited until the ship pulled up to the island, waited as one man got off into a smaller boat and came onshore.

He watched warily as the man came to him, knowing full well that if he chose to attack, Hartley wouldn't be able to stop him. Perhaps he would've stood a chance if Wells had bothered to leave him any sort of weapon- he hadn't. There was no doubt he'd intended for Hartley to die with what he knew. The man didn't have his sword out already, so that was something, at least. There was something vaguely familiar about him; Hartley couldn't imagine how he'd encountered someone of this sort without knowing it before, so he pushed the thought aside.

"How'd you get stuck out here?"

"...it's a long story." _And not one I'm willing to talk about yet._

"Give me the short version." His tone didn't really leave any room for argument. Hartley debated whether it was worth it to keep silent- he truly was _not_ in the mood to have this conversation, not now and maybe not ever. But he also didn't feel like getting left behind by what might be his only chance off this island just because he was being too stubborn. He wasn't the only one at risk if he died here- he had to get out the information he knew, somehow. Hartley wasn't going to allow Wells' plan to come to fruitation.

"I was betrayed by my captain. He left me here to die."

"Not a good captain." That was certainly an understatement. "Or maybe he had a good reason. What'd you do?"

"I'd rather not say."

"That's not particularly convincing if you want someone to help you." 

It wasn't. Hartley knew that. But there were things worth more than information about his past. "I can be useful."

"Can you?"

"I can accomplish whatever you ask of me." Which was not strictly true- he could learn how to do most things if he put in the effort, but there were of course limitations to that. However, only he needed to know that at this point. If saying this lead to problems down the line, he'd deal with it then. 

Not that the man looked particularly convinced anyway. "You're either way too confident of abilities you don't have or you're too valuable to have been left here for no good reason." Hartley hoped that wasn't a sign that he wasn't going to get help. "Tell me, what are your... _morals_ like?"

The question caught him off-guard. A pirate asking him about his morals? Why would he even care what kind of person Hartley was? Perhaps it was some sort of trick question. If it was, that meant everything after this hinged on his answer. He picked out his words even more carefully than he usually did. "After that? They're significantly lower."

"Perfect." A smirk crossed the man's face, and before Hartley could question what was so amusing about this situation- "Come with me if you want to live."

"Is that what you say to every person you recruit?" Hartley said, before he could think better of it. But if he was being brought aboard, there was no point in trying to hide what his personality was really like. He'd never done it before and he certainly wasn't going to start now, pirates or not. They started walking towards the lifeboat.

"Who knows."

"Do you plan on introducing yourself?" Could he get _any_ sort of non-cryptic reply out of this pirate?

"You mean you don't know?" Hartley gave him a _would I be asking if I knew?_ look. The man had the nerve to laugh. "Leonard Snart."

It hit Hartley, belatedly, just why the man had seemed familiar. It was just his luck that he'd run into the most infamous pirates currently active. 

But perhaps that really was luck; what better platform to take down Wells than with the crew of the _Rogue?_

"You're not going to return the favor?"

Hartley weighed the pros and cons of giving them his real name- it wasn't as if he came from some poor, unknown family. "...Hartley."

Snart nodded, didn't question the lack of a surname. "Alright, Hartley. Don't make me regret picking you up."

 

He didn't plan to.

**Author's Note:**

> This could probably use some more editing, but it's been in my drafts for so long and I promised I'd get it up this month, so here it is. I don't really plan on continuing this, but if anyone wants to do a followup of what happens after this, feel free, as long as you link back to this fic.
> 
> Len is _absolutely_ the type of person to drop some cliched, dramatic line like "come with me if you want to live." Also, he just kind of... Picked up everyone on his crew, besides Lisa of course, so if it seemed a bit of an abrupt decision on his part to let Hartley join the crew, there was more to it than we got from his POV.
> 
> Find me on tumblr, cliches-and-coffee


End file.
